There was a social media storm following John Lewis’ latest edition to its Christmas advert productions last month, and now Monty the Penguin has been named the “most compelling” Christmas ad from high street retailers this year.
According to a new study, John Lewis’ CGI penguin on the quest for love (or a mail order bride) scored 84% on the “emotionally compelling” scale – a combined measure of how the ad scored on attraction, retention, engagement and impact.
The study, carried out by Realeyes, incorporated over 2.2 million facial data points to measure people’s facial reactions as they watched ads from 25 leading high street brands.
Monty narrowly beat Harvey Nichols’ Could I Be Any Clearer ad which scored 80%, while the Post Office’s Get Xmas All Wrapped Up (68%) featuring Robert Webb and Pixie Lott, and Boots’ Special Because (64%), took the next two spots.
Iceland, Lidl, Harrods, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and House of Fraser also featured in the top 10.
“There are four elements to make an ad resonate emotionally,” said Realeyes’ CEO Mihkel Jäätma.
“Attract or hook the audience early, retain their attention, engage by invoking some form of reaction – the stronger the better – and finish with impact. Monty scored joint highest on engagement and impact with Harvey Nichols, but won because it was the best ad at retaining attention.
“However, both ads were very mid-table when it came to initial attraction.”
Although celebrities feature in two of the top five ads, the incorporation of familiar famous faces didn’t work for all brands.
Littlewoods’ offering with singer Myleene Klass had the second lowest overall score of all 25 ads and the lowest initial attraction score, while H&M’s ad with Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett had the fourth lowest score of all the ads measured
